Intangible Capital

IC, 2018 – 14(4): 584-603 – Online ISSN: 1697-9818 – Print ISSN: 2014-3214

https://doi.org/10.3926/ic.1258

Mission statements of universities worldwide -Text mining and visualization

Julián David Cortés-Sánchez

Universidad del Rosario, School of Management, Bogotá (Colombia)

julian.cortess@urosario.edu.co

Received January, 2018Accepted April, 2018

Abstract

Purpose: To conduct a transnational study of universities’ mission statements (MS) through contentanalysis by identifying characteristics related to language (e.g., number of words, the most and leastfrequently used words) and if those characteristics are related to universities’ location, size, focus,research output, age band, and status.

Design/methodology: Content analysis of 248 MS from universities worldwide using Voyant Tools.

Findings: The main results show: (1) a necessity for self-awareness by the universities; (2) an overallemphasis on society and students, as stakeholders; (3) there were no discernible similarities in keywordsused between firms and universities; (4) MS tend to be longer in universities from Asia and shorter fromEurope; (5) the absence of quantitative elementsinto MS (e.g. number of new students enrolled); (6)small universities prioritized knowledge over research; (7) the youngest universities tend to use more ofthe least frequently used words; (8) collaboration was a barely mentioned term, although the pre-eminence of research and the dominance of groups in knowledge is now a global trend; (9) the youngestuniversities tend to use more of the least frequently used words; (10) public universities emphasizedindividuals (i.e., students) and private universities emphasized education as a whole; and (11) the privatesector has a noticeable interest in the society which contrasts with the public sector’s focus oncommunity.

Research limitations/implications: Subsamples of certain regions should be more inclusive in furtherstudies. Considering that the mean sample of MS studies was 89.6, this study used a sample more thantwo times larger. Although, both African (4) and Latin American (5) subsamples were not significantcompared with European (94) or North American (79) subsamples. Further studies should consider amore-inclusive sampling than the QS world university ranking.

Practical implications: University planning offices can use these results and the digital database toconstruct a global outlook on MS trends or uncommonly used words to define the purpose of theiruniversity and future course of action, embrace an overall isomorphism, or seek a distinctive strategy todifferentiate their MS from others. In addition, this research can be used by strategic planning scholarsto conduct regionally or nationally focused studies.

Social implications: Universities’ MS serve as public pronouncements of their purpose, ambition, andvalues. In this study, we present and analyze the contents of those purposes, in which mission-orienteduniversities, some of them global influencers, seek to perform in multiple levels of importance for everycountry (i.e., education, research, and services with both private and public sectors, and the community).

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Originality/value: Most of the previous studies have been restricted to national contexts and based onreduced samples with no open access digital data. In this study, we consider a wide sample ofuniversities from Europe, North America, Asia, and Oceania. We also considered both Latin Americaand Africa in a strictly exploratory fashion due to sample restriction and delivered a digital open accessdatabase of MS from those universities.

Keywords: Mission statements, Planning, Universities, Content analysis

Jel Codes: I23, O32, O57

To cite this article:

Cortés Sánchez, J.D. (2018). Mission statements of universities worldwide - Text mining and visualization.Intangible Capital, 14(4), 584-603. https://doi.org/10.3926/ic.1258

1. Introduction

Strategic planning is now a ubiquitous practice in private, public and nonprofit organizations, as the abundantevidence regarding its implementations shows that it works, in some cases extremely well (Bryson, 2010). Thebackbone tool of any strategic plan is the mission statements (MS) (Bart, 2001) as it contributes to guidestrategic planning, defines the organization’s scope of business operations/activities, provides a commonpurpose/direction, promotes a sense of shared expectations, and guides leadership styles (Baetz & Bart, 1996).The engagement of the higher education sector in the implementation of MS dates to the early 1980s (Davies &Glaister, 1997; Kotler & Murphy, 1981). Since then, scholars on the topic have emphasized the relationshipsbetween MS content (Cochran & David, 1986), overall objectives (Firmin & Gilson, 2010), institutional status(i.e., private or public) (Morphew & Hartley, 2006) and external factors (e.g., private sector or community)(Seeber, Barberio, Huisman & Mampaey, 2017). Hence, strategic planning and MS development process has adirect and strong influence on institutional policies for internal or external purposes, strategic programs,operational goals, and performance indicators (de Lourdes Machado, Farhangmehr & Taylor, 2004).

The English-language literature on MS and its implementation on universities has been growing, especially sincethe mid-2000s. Yet the first study, to our knowledge, on MS, its content, and its effect on corporatecommunication in business schools was conducted by Cochran and David in the 80s (Cochran & David, 1986).Since then, research has been focused on MS in individual academic units (Orwig & Finney, 2007), their effect onuniversities’ identity (Firmin & Gilson, 2010), their relation with the university’s environment (Kuenssberg,2011), and their difference among private and public universities (Efe & Ozer, 2015). The majority of thosestudies were focused on individual countries and universities from the global North (i.e., US, Germany and UK),and the average of the sample was 89.6 observations. Therefore, we considered that there is a disengagementfrom the global South, the absence of transnational studies, and no discernible open access digital dataset forreplications or triangulations in further studies.

Considering the advances pinpointed in the literature, this study has three aims. First, to conduct one of the firsttransnational studies on MS through content analysis. Second, to amplify the richness of the sample by a factorof two. And third, to provide an open access digital dataset for MS from universities worldwide. For achievingthese aims, we used the Quacquarelli Symonds’ (QS) world university ranking as a list of institutions in which wefocused efforts in MS search and collection among universities’ website.

The use of QS rankings is not free of controversy on using subjective and biased weightings, unequaldistribution of returned questionnaires, some universities were evaluated only by domestic respondents, quite afew universities exhibit the same indicator scores or even full scores, rendering the assessment questionable,among others critics (Dobrota, Bulajic Bornmann & Jeremic, 2016; Huang, 2012). Nevertheless, when comparingthe six global rankings, including QS, results indicate that although each ranking system applies a differentmethodology, there are from a moderate to high correlation among them (Shehatta & Mahmood, 2016). In

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addition, other rankings such as the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) use several criteria thatdo not quite fit the global South university context. For instance, the ARWU criteria of “quality of education” ismeasured as “Alumni of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals”. For instance, two individualshave won the Nobel Prize in Colombia: Gabriel Garcia Marquez (who died in 2014) and Juan Manuel Santos(president in office). Neither of them have held a tenured professorship in any university. In the case of theFields Medal, the mathematician Artur Avila Cordeiro de Melo was the first and only Latin American to win suchaward in 2014. Does it mean that there is no “quality of education” in any Latin America university? In contrast,the QS ranking is more admissible in their criteria for universities in developing countries (see Appendix 1).

After this introduction, we present a literature review followed by a content analysis of 248 MS from universitiesranked in the 2016 QS world university ranking. Voyant Tools software was used for the content analysis, whichwas conducted in groups of universities differentiated by continent, size, focus, research level, age band, andstatus. We then present the results and discussion. Finally, we present the conclusions and limitations of thisstudy.

2. Literature reviewThe English-language literature on MS can be divided into three strands: seminal, mainstream, and critical. Mostof the literature-corpus comes from business, management and accounting fields, as an anticipated conclusionafter reviewing the most discussed studies. After a comprehensive literature review, then we focused exclusivelyon universities’ MS English-language literature.

2.1. Seminal

The objectives of the seminal strand are twofold: to advance the understanding of the purpose of a businessthrough reflecting on its philosophy and comprehend the relationship between MS and performance. From aphilosophical perspective, Jones (1960) proposed a framework to guide decision-making for businesspeople andorganizations that comprised two ideas: long-term goals and the sets of means to achieving these goals. Jones(1960) argued that an organization’s permanent goal should be to further the welfare of an organization’sbeneficiaries. In the same year, Theodore Levitt (1960) proposed a MS strategy school (Campell & Yeung, 1991).Levitt (1960) argued that several companies incorrectly define their business because of a narrow scope (e.g.,Apple’s core values and definition was not to be a company that produces computers, but a company thatproduces high-tech products for people who passionately want to change the world). Moreover, Levitt (1960)maintained that a CEO, “[M]ust set the company’s style, its direction, and its goals” (p. 149).

Later, Drucker (1973) was aware of the importance of a MS in business strategic planning; however, he also wasaware of its potential for misunderstanding (Bartkus, Glassman & McAfee, 2000). To resolve this issue, Ducker(1973) argued that defining a MS was equivalent to answering the questions: what is our business? And whatshould it be? Regardless of the restrained use of MS in the late 1980s (Leuthesser & Kohli, 1997), thesereflections led to the development of the first empirical studies to analyze the contents of several MS and theirrelationship to performance. After analyzing the content of a few corporate MS, Pearce (1982) suggested thateight key components could be identified (i.e., target customers, basic products or services, primary markets,principal technology, concern for survival, growth and profitability, company philosophy, company self-conceptand concern for public image). By means of content analysis using Pearce’s eight key components and the FogIndex for readability, Cochran and David (1986) concluded that MS should improve the readability and tone ofthe organization and its image. Anticipating Campbell’s (1989) reasoning on the importance of MS fororganizations to outperform those that do not have one (Figure 1), Pearce and David (1987) argued that higherperforming firms have a comparatively more comprehensive MS considering Pearce’s (1982) key components,and that corporate philosophy, self-concept and public image were essential components to include in a MS.

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Figure 1. What is a mission? Adapted from Campbell (1989, pp. 4)

2.2. Mainstream

The objectives of the mainstream strand are threefold: to refine the methods of MS content analysis, examinethe relationship or effect of a MS with performance, and improve the sample limitations of seminal empiricalstudies. Christopher Bart is one of the most prolific scholars in this strand and in MS topics in general. Ten yearsafter Cochran and David’s (1986) findings, Baetz and Bart (1996) presented a “typical” MS. It contained onefinancial objective (or none at all), one or two non-financial objectives, one value, belief or philosophy statement,the organization’s definition of success, the organization’s number one priority, a definition of the organization’sstrategy and a reference to one stakeholder. Contrary to what was expected, Bart and Baetz (1998) found mixedresults on MS effects as there was no significant difference between firms with or without MS (in terms ofreturn on assets) and a tenuous relationship between MS components and several financial measures amongindustrial and consumer goods firms (Bart, 1996a). Nevertheless, they also found a significant correlationbetween the satisfaction with MS development processes and its influence on employees’ behaviors (Bart, 1996,1996a).

When comparing different industrial sectors (i.e., manufacturing and high-tech MS) major differences in MScontent were noticeable (Bart, 1996). In spite of the MS content differences between industries, MS showed apositive correlation with performance in hospitals, as long as the MS contained components such as a distinctivecompetence/strength, specific patients, unique identity and concern for satisfying patients (Bart & Tabone,1999). Regardless of the “typical” MS stated back in 1996, Bart (1997b) then considered that a MS should besufficiently general in its orientation and that quantitative objectives should be used in other documents orspaces, as financial objectives do not inspire employees considerably. In the line of MS and inspiration, acomprehensive MS also showed multiple emotional and psychological benefits (Bart, 1997a).

In time, several key MS components were added to the framework of the ideal MS and its positive effects onperformance. On the one hand, the key MS components added were: major inspirations, benefactors,competitive orientation and business definition. On the other hand, the performance measures positive influenceby MS key words were: behavioral, financial, mission achievement measures and intellectual capital indicators(Bart & Bontis, 2003; Bart & Hupfer, 2004). In the early 2000s, alongside Internet’s scaling, there was theemergence of a novel corporate communication strategy in posting the MS on the corporate website whichconsiderably eased the diffusion of MS to external stakeholders (Bart, 2001). Similarly, a key remark on an

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effective corporate communication strategy, is that MS has to be written as a narrative or history to reach a broadaudience and produce an emotional commitment to the organization (Bart & Hupfer, 2004).

Alongside this fruitful research agenda, several studies also contributed to the mainstream strand. Weiss andPiderit (1999) found a positive impact on the adoption of MS and its relation to performance in 304 publicschools in the US by performing the first robust impact evaluation reported in the literature to our knowledge.This virtue was not found in the UK public agencies during MS implementation (Hyndman & Eden, 2000). Bycomparison with the private sector, CEOs from the UK had positive perceptions of the importance of a formalMS to improve performance, hence there was a widespread MS implementation in SMEs. Additional evidencefrom Netherlands (Sidhu, 2003), US (Williams, 2008) and Japan (Hirota, Kubo, Miyajima, Hong & Park, 2010)supports the MS-performance relationship. For instance, firms with strong MS value their organizational capitaland tend to adopt policies to preserve it (Hirota et al., 2010). One of the few transnational studies also found apositive relationship between MS components as a business rule (e.g., being responsible to the society) andfinancial performance in firms from Europe, Japan, and the US (Bartkus, Glassman & McAfee, 2005). While thethree main MS content priorities in the UK were: long-term profit, survival and growth (Analoui & Karami,2002), the main content priorities in Slovenian (Babnik, Breznik, Dermol & Sirca, 2014) and Turkish (Duygulu,Ozeren, Isildar & Apolloni, 2016) firms were: stakeholder concerns, orientation towards stability, co-operationand innovation, development and growth, philosophy and values, and public image. Another MS componentfound in firms from the US and Turkish, was a trend to global influence/operations and going green, mainlybecause of the influence of the Internet (King, Case & Premo, 2010; Yozgat & Karatas, 2011). The positiverelation between MS and performance does not exclusively belong to the public or private sector. Patel, Booker,Ramos and Bart (2015) also endorse this relation based on findings from NGOs from 30 countries.

All those listed findings appear to be too diverse and intricate to synthetize. To clarify, Dasmidt, Prinzie andDecramer (2011) conducted a meta-analysis arguing that MS do matter and that they have a measurableassociation with financial performance. Although that meta-analysis only used 14 studies (e.g., the most-citedmeta-analysis on business, management and accounting used 52 studies (Orlitzky, Schmidt & Rynes, 2003)).Consequently, Dasmidt et al. (2011) asked whether it was, “Time to shelve the discussion? Not necessarily” (pp.479).

2.3. Critical

The objective of the critical strand was to controvert the importance and usefulness of MS to organizationalplanning and performance. Ireland and Hitt (1992) listed nine reasons why companies might not employ a MS(i.e., no one would read it, too much effort or work, impractical, an academic exercise, do not need it, wouldreveal too much confidential information, lack of generalist skills to develop, operational matters come first, andcomfort with the status quo). However, the same study concluded that MS stimulated organization members toengage in information conveyance and convergence processes and motivation. In fact, Bart (1997b) identifiedstatements regarding MS such as: mission impossible; mission ambiguity; mission dissatisfaction; wrong mission;development process dissatisfaction; no influence over behavior; and no involvement and improper use. Overall,“The vast majority of MS are not worth the paper they are written on and should not be taken with any degreeof seriousness” (Bart, 1997b, pp. 12). Nevertheless, the bountiful evidence produced by Bart and colleagues after1997 refute these anecdotes as noted in the mainstream strand section. One of the few studies reporting nocorrelation between MS and performance was conducted by O’Gorman and Doran (1999); however, the studysample reduced observations (n=64) and it was conducted only in Irish SMEs. In sum, the argumentative corpusof the critical strand is reduced to reflexive considerations in some cases and lacks empirical evidence in othercases.

2.4. Mission statements in universities

When focusing on MS in universities, the literature has been enriching the mainstream strand. While a MS beganto be considered as a corner-stone of the emerging strategic planning for the higher education field in the 1980s(Kotler & Murphy, 1981), Cochran and David (1986) were one of the first researchers to consider MS, its

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content, and its effect on corporate communications in business schools. Other studies were conductedafterwards on different types of academic units such as AACSB-accredited business schools (Orwig & Finney,2007), technology transfer offices (Fitzgerald & Cunningham, 2016) and ophthalmology departments (Wedrichet al., 2012). In the mid-2000s, studying the MS of universities began to receive more attention. Morphew andHartley (2006) found that the institutional status (public vs. private) predicts MS components as few elementsappear more frequently than others (e.g. commitment to diversity) and there was a prevalence of elements relatedspecifically to service. Atkinson (2008) reported that universities’ MS operate as cultural-cognitive indicators, orideational indicators of group solidarity, shared beliefs, and human agreement. Hence, are these cultural-cognitive indicators converting in MS within a given country? Conversely, are universities using their MS todifferentiate themselves from other organizations?

On the former, Kuenssberg (2011) claimed that universities’ MS convey an overall impression of samenessrather than distinctiveness and a lack of focus on some key areas (e.g., the student experience). Along similarlines, Hladchenko (2016) traced isomorphism both claiming education and research in MS from Ukraine. Also,Kosmützky (2012) argued that MS express the tasks that are set for them by the higher education law (i.e highereducation national policy) and supplement these missions with distinct images. On the latter, Hladchenko (2013)found that universities’ MS must be developed in an open discussion with the participation of the members ofuniversity. In the same light, Kosmützky and Krücken (2015) concluded that MS allow universities to positionthemselves in particular niches and competitive groups.

Beyond those former inquiries, universities are not islands. Current MS are marked by a need for reassuring theirlegitimacy and the demands of a growing tertiary market and a constantly changing economic, political,historical, and cultural background, which also shapes MS (Efe & Ozer, 2015) as they adopt claims similar touniversities belonging to the same organizational form while differentiating from geographically closeruniversities to reduce competitive overlap (Seeber et al., 2017).

To synthesize, the majority of studies were conducted primarily in the US and Germany. Their common overallobjective was to understand the MS content and its effect on universities’ identity, behavior and their capacity torespond to the social, political and economic environment. The methodology used in all studies reviewed abovewas a content or textual analysis. The mean of the samples was 89.6. Two of the concluding remarks gave anoverall impression of sameness rather than distinctiveness in the MS analyzed (i.e., isomorphism) and adistinctiveness of MS in cases where universities shared geographic proximity to increase their differentiation inthe local market.

3. Methodology

3.1. Data

The base dataset used to identify a feasible list of universities for analysis was the 2016 QS world universityranking, which evaluates universities based on six metrics: academic reputation; employer reputation;faculty/student ratio; citations per faculty; international faculty ratio; and international student ratio (Appendix 1presents the description for each metric). Considering that the first two metrics add up to 50% of the overallscore and that both metrics are based on a survey completed by 70,000 individuals in the higher educationcommunity and 30,000 employers, respectively (QS, 2017) universities without these assessments were notconsidered. We explored each university’s websites to locate their MS, whether in a given tab or thestrategic/corporate plans. The MS gathered were explicitly mentioned as “mission” or “mission statement”.Titles such as “values”, “purpose” or “vision”, for instance, were not considered due to a more precise datagathering. Only MS in English were considered due to language standardization. Consequently, the sample wasreduced from 400 to 248 MS. Table 1 presents the number of universities and MS by continent (see Appendix 2for a complete list of countries). Table 2 presents the number and percentage of the universities by size, focus,research, age band and status. A permanent link to the databases is available in the following link(https://goo.gl/6PgTh1) or QR code.

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Key Continent # UsEU Europe 94 (38%)NA North America 79 (31%)AS Asia 48 (19%)OC Oceania 18 (7%)LA Latin America 5 (2%)AF Africa 4 (1%)Total # MS 248

Table 1. Number of universities bycontinent and number of MS by country.

By the author based on QS, 2016, anduniversity websites

Metric Key Meaning #Us %Size S Small 6 2%

M Medium 47 19%L Large 140 56%XL Extra-large 55 22%

Focus FC Full comprehensive 160 65%CO Comprehensive 71 29%FO Focused 14 6%SP Specialist 3 1%

Research MD Medium 4 2%HI High 30 12%VH Very-high 214 86%

Age band 5 >100 years 162 65%4 50-100 years 53 21%3 25-50 years 26 10%2 10-25 years 7 3%

Status A Public 207 83% B Private 41 17%

Table 2. Number and percentage of universities by size,focus, research, age band and status. By the author based

on QS, 2016, and university websites

3.2. Content analysis

Voyant Tools was used for content analysis. Voyant Tools (Sinclair & Rockwell, 2015) is an open-source web-based text reading and analysis environment that uses more than 20 visualization tools to analyze a text corpus,which allows to users to investigate patterns of words/concepts and to explore and visualize large corpus of textsystemically, exercises that may be difficult to perform by simply reading. Studies in which Voyant Tools has beenused for research, are recently being published in peer-reviewed publications (Boyle & Hall, 2016). Voyant Toolsis an open-source project and the code is available through GitHub (For code details see GitHub, n.d.).

The content analyses implemented in MS consist of the frequency of terms and their ratio. The frequency ofterms consists of determining the number of times a word is mentioned in a corpus. The ratio of terms depicts

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the changes in the frequency of words included in a corpus where each analyzed group is represented in avertical column where the highest frequency words are plotted. The x-axis displays the group titles and the y-axisdisplays the relative frequencies.

4. Results and discussion The results of the content analyses include ratio of terms (i.e., a visualization that depicts the changes in thefrequency of words included in a corpus where each analyzed group is represented in a vertical column with thehighest frequency words plotted, the bottom x-axis displays the group titles and the left y-axis displays therelative frequencies); the average number of words per sentence; and the most and least frequently used words.Content analyses were conducted for MS in an overall worldwide analysis and by continent, size, focus, research,age band, and status. It must be said in advance, that the sample of MS from Latin American and Africanuniversities (n=9 combined) should be interpreted as a strictly exploratory analysis due to a restricted presenceamong the top 400 universities into de QS ranking.

4.1. Overall analysis

The overall MS analysis indicates that the five most frequently used words were: university, research, knowledge,students, and education; and the five least frequently used words were: educational, institutions, responsibility, state, andsupport (Figure 2 and Table 3). Universities needed to express their self-awareness, to mention themselves in theirMS (i.e., company self-concept (Pearce, 1982)). The word frequencies of knowledge, education and stakeholders (i.e.,society and students) were consistent with the findings of both Firmin and Gilson (2010) -regarding society- andHladchenko (2013) -regarding research and teaching- (Table 3). Considering the words found by Ingenhoff andFuhrer (2010) and Orlitzky, Louche, Gond and Chapple (2017) on private organizations’, no discerniblesimilarities were observed between words used by private companies and universities. These findings support theoverall conclusion argued in the literature review, i.e., overall sameness rather than distinctiveness in MS inuniversities (Kuenssberg, 2011), particularly in promoting education and research (Hladchenko, 2016).

Figure 2. Collocation graph of MS (Overall). By the author, based on QS, 2016, and universitywebsites, and processed in Voyant Tools

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Average of words per sentence 27.7Total words 29,447Most frequent words

University 501Research 461Knowledge 230Students 196Education 185Teaching 158World 148Society 131Academic 121Learning 118

Least frequent words

Educational 39Institutions 39Responsibility 39State 39Support 39Activities 38

Table 3. Average number of words per sentence and word frequency(Overall). By the author based on QS, 2016, and university websites

4.2. Continents

Two noteworthy findings were observed in MS analyses by continent. First, the longest MS were from Asianuniversities and the shortest were from European universities, which concurs with two results identified by Bartand Hupfer (2004) (Table 4). That is, MS are dependent from their institutional or geographical environment,and some MS were written as a narrative to reach a broader audience and cultivate an emotional commitment tothe organization. For instance, the MS of the National Taiwan University (NTU) is:

“To provide an excellent environment for students and faculty to learn and innovate, to offer leaders of society andresearchers the most innovative knowledge, and to raise the level of Taiwan's scholarship, assist national economicdevelopment, and resolve major problems of establishing the prospect of sustained development for humanity. Broadlyembracing top professionals from around the world, and dedicated to our core philosophy of excellence in education,excellence in research, and social concern, we aim to make NTU into a renowned bastion of education and research infulfilling our vision to be ranked "the pinnacle of the Chinese and the first-rate in the world.”

On the other hand, when comparing MS from Europe, examples such as: “Technology for people” from theTechnische Universitat Wien, showed off their brevity. Brevity can be considered as a virtue and a proven attributethat affects an organization’s performance and internal image (Baetz & Bart, 1996; Baum, Locke & Kirkpatrick,1998; Cochran & David, 1986). Second, universities from each region showed differentiated words (Figure 3).Asia, where technology was a differentiated word, is a well-known region where the higher education systempushed technological development forward very rapidly. In the 60s, the number of patent applications byresidents in South Korea was 545 meanwhile in United States was 63,090. Fifty-five years later, South Korea nowproduces 167,275 and United States 288,335, more than 300 times 60s’ production, and 68% of the currentUnited States (The World Bank, 2015). Regarding quantitative elements, barely none were adopted. As anexception, the Arizona State University explicitly added quantitative objectives to its MS:

“[…] Improve freshmen persistence to 90% […] Enhance university graduation rate to 80% and more than 32,000graduates […] Enroll 100,000 online and distance education degree seeking students […] Attain national standing inacademic quality for each college and school (top 5%) […] Establish ASU as a leading global center for interdisciplinaryresearch, discovery and development by 2025 […] Enhance research competitiveness to more than $815 million in annualresearch expenditures…”

The exclusion of quantitative objectives supports Bart’s (1997a) claim. These results also support Efe and Ozer’s(2015) conclusion on the importance of economic, political, historical, and cultural paths in shaping MS.

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Figure 3. Ratio of terms for MS (Continents). By the author, based on QS, 2016, and universitywebsites, and processed in Voyant Tools

Average of words per sentence

Higher 35.8 (AS)Lower 23.3 (EU)

Differentiated words

AF RelevanceAL UniversidadAS TechnologyEU UniversityNA KnowledgeOC Communities

Table 4. Average number of words per sentence anddifferentiated words in MS (Continents). By the author, based on

QS, 2016, and university websites

4.3. Size

Three remarkable findings were observed in MS analyses by size. First, as foreseen, extra-large-, large- andmedium-sized universities developed a research priority while small universities emphasized knowledge (Figure 4).Second, the next priority in MS of medium-sized universities was education. Therefore, medium-sized universitiescan be seen in a transition phase from being knowledge-based towards research-based universities. Third,collaboration is a word barely mentioned. In contrast, co-operation was one of the predominant concepts identifiedin Slovenian organization’s MS (Babnik et al., 2014). Furthermore, a formal inclusion of the word research in theMS seems irrelevant (Table 5). Over the past 45 years, the production of knowledge has been dominated bygroups not individuals: the average number of authors per paper has increased from 1.9 to 3.5 (Wuchty, Jones,B., & Uzzi, 2007).

Figure 4. Ratio of terms for MS (Size). By the author, based on QS, 2016, and universitywebsites, and processed in Voyant Tools

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Average of words per sentence

Higher 33.4 (S)Lower 25.4 (XL)

Differentiated words

XL CommunityL CommunityM InternationalS Workforce

Table 5. Average number of words per sentence anddifferentiated words in MS (Size). By the author, based on QS,

2016, and university websites

4.4. Focus

In the focus group sample, universities developed a MS with defined priorities such as society, teaching, education (asin the comprehensive group) and students (Figure 5). Considering that the sample is composed primarily (98%) ofuniversities in both groups, i.e,. high and very high research, the analysis of research subsample is essentially thesame as the overall analysis (Figure 6 and Table 7).

Figure 5. Ratio of terms for MS (Focus). By the author, based on QS, 2016, and universitywebsites, and processed in Voyant Tools

Average of words per sentence

Higher 44.4 (FO)Lower 26.3 (FC)

Differentiated words

CO UniversityFC UniversityFO ProvideSP Studies

Table 6. Average number of words per sentence anddifferentiated words in MS (Focus). By the author, based on QS,

2016, and university

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Figure 6. Ratio of terms for MS (Research). By the author, based on QS, 2016, and universitywebsites, and processed in Voyant Tools

Average of words per sentence

Higher 34.8 (MD)Lower 27.4 (VH)

Differentiated words

HI UniversityMD HighlyVH University

Table 7. Average number of words per sentence anddifferentiated words in MS (Research). By the author, based on

QS, 2016, and university websites

4.5. Age band

Sixty-five per cent of universities in the sample are more than 100 years old. No longitudinal evidence is availablein this study on the evolution of components of MS, but we can safely assume that the oldest universities wereearly in the use of words such as research, knowledge and students or education, and their younger counterparts usedthese words as a point of reference and adopted them by default (Figure 7 – Table 8). However, the youngestuniversities (10–50 years old) frequently used words regarding stakeholders (i.e,. society), teaching and education,which were actually the least frequently used among the most frequently used words, as observed by Babnik et al.(2014) in Slovenian firms.

Figure 7. Ratio of terms for MS (Age band). By the author, based on QS, 2016, and universitywebsites, and processed in Voyant Tools

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Average of words per sentence

Higher 35.5 (4)Lower 23.1 (2)

Differentiated words

2 Community3 Scientific4 Country5 International

Table 8. Average number of words per sentence anddifferentiated words in MS (Age band). By the author, based on

QS, 2016, and university websites

4.6. Status

The status of the majority of universities is public (83%). When their MS were compared with the private sectorand putting aside the words research, university and knowledge, the highest priority term for public universities wasstudents (Figure 8). However, education is a more-noticeable term in the private sector than in the public sector.The private sector noticeably focuses on education as a whole, while the public sector focuses on individuals. Inaddition, the private sector has a noticeable interest in society (global scope), which contrasts with the publicsector’s focus on community (local scope) (Table 9). According to Kosmützky and Krücken (2015) MS allowuniversities to position themselves in particular niches/competitive groups, hence MS from public universitiesseem to be shaped to function accordingly to the higher education national/local laws/policies (Kosmützky,2012) in favor of local priorities. In contraposition from MS from private universities which seems to beimpacted by the demands of a growing tertiary education market (i.e., globalization) (Efe & Ozer, 2015).

Figure 8. Ratio of terms for MS (Status). By the author, based on QS, 2016, and universitywebsites, and processed in Voyant Tools

Average of words per sentence

Higher 27.9 (B)Lower 27.7 (A)

Differentiated words

A LeadingA WorkingA ResearchersB Welcome B ToleranceB Thoughtful

Table 9. Average number of words per sentence anddifferentiated words in MS (Status). By the author, based on QS,

2016, and university websites

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5. Conclusions

MS is a ubiquitous strategic planning instruments adopted worldwide. It determines the actual purpose andfuture course of action for organizations, and the related internal or external processes. The extensive literatureon MS shows a discernible consensus on the importance of coordinating and measuring organizationalperformance, public or internal image, employee behavior and commitment, and value creation among otherfactors. Despite this advancement, most studies have been conducted at a national level in private organizationslocated in the global North. When focusing on universities, the literature emphasized MS content analyses at thenational level with reduced samples. Based on previous developments, this study presented three maincontributions. First, it conducted one of the first transnational studies on universities’ MS. Second, it amplifiedthe richness of the sample by a factor of two. And third, it provided an open access digital dataset of MS fromuniversities worldwide.

Among the main findings, universities showed a necessity for self-awareness or to mention themselves on theirown MS. MS could be more punctual and shorter if redundant claims are omitted (i.e., “the mission of thisuniversity, is…”). MS showed an overall emphasis on society and students, as stakeholders. The former wasremarked in MS from private universities which made emphasis in society and education (global and conceptualfocus), in contrasts with the public sector’s focus on community and students (local and individual scope). Itseems that the MS from public universities are strongly shaped by national/local policies which are committed tonational/local priorities. On the other hand, society and education appeared to be more global terms whichencompass the demands of a growing higher education market. MS are also shaped by current university’scapacity, as small universities prioritized knowledge (applied research) over research (basic research). Yet therewere no discernible similarities in words used in MS between private organizations and universities. Therefore,universities are not apathetical from their surrounding but still preserve their independency from a fully-corporative purpose. These differences between particular economic, political or cultural contexts were alsofound in continent subsamples, which showed that MS tend to be longer in universities from Asia and shorterfrom Europe, or the absence of quantitative indicators (e.g., number of new students enrolled). As final remark,collaboration was a barely mentioned term, although the pre-eminence of research and the dominance of groupsover individuals in knowledge production is a more effective external effect than a formal mention inuniversities’ MS.

University planning offices can use these results and the digital database to construct a global outlook on MStrends or uncommonly used words to define the purpose of their university and future course of action,embrace an overall isomorphism, or seek a distinctive strategy to differentiate their institution from others. Inaddition, this research can be used by strategic planning scholars to conduct regionally or nationally focusedstudies.

The limitations of this study are the samples from some regions. Considering that the mean sample of MSstudies was 89.6, this study used a sample more than two times larger. Although, the African (4) and Latin-American (5) samples were not significant compared with European (94) or North American (79) subsamples.Thus, further studies should consider a more inclusive ranking in research databases than the QS worlduniversity ranking.

Acknowledgments The author would like to thank to Valeria Andrea Rodriguez-Moreno and Manuel Ricardo Rodriguez-Garzon fortheir research assistance, and to Myriam Liliana Rivera-Virguez for her advice. Also, thanks to Dr. Julia Jensen forher proofreading assistance.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/orpublication of this article.

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Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Appendix

1. QS Classifications

All of the information presented in this appendix was obtained from the QS Intelligence Unit (2016).

• Size: Based on the (full-time equivalent) size of the degree-seeking student body. Where an FTE numberis not provided or available, one will be estimated based on the common characteristics of otherorganizations in the country or region under study.

Size Student XL Extra Large >30,000L Large >=12,000M Medium >=5,000S Small <5,000

• Subject range: Four categories were based on the organization’s provision of programs in the five broadfaculty areas used in the university rankings. An additional category was added based on whether thesubject organization has a medical school because of the radically different publication habits andpatterns in the field of medicine.

Focus Faculty areaFC Full comprehensive All 5 faculty areas + medical schoolCO Comprehensive All 5 faculty areas + medical schoolFO Focused More 2 faculty areasSP Specialist 2 or 1 faculty areas

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• Age: Since 2011, five age bands based on the supplied year of the foundation of the organization.

Focus Faculty area5 Historic More than 100 years old4 Mature 50-100 years old3 Established 25-50 years old2 Young 10-25 years old1 New Less than 10 years

• Research intensity: Our level of research activity was evaluated based on the number of documentsretrievable from Scopus in the five-year period preceding the application of the classification. Thethresholds required to reach different levels differ depending on the pre-classification of organizationsin their first and second aspects.

Research intensityVH Very highHI HighMD MediumLO Low

Since their introduction in the 2009 table, the QS classifications have been met with mixed feedback. Positivefeedback was received for the concept and supporting research, but less-positive feedback was received for ournotation. In the 2010 table, we implemented a more dramatically simple and transparent notation that introducedthree columns, one for each of the above metrics.

Our intention is not to infer a hierarchy because the QS rankings are available for that purpose, i.e., XL is not afundamentally more-preferable classification to S nor is it more intrinsically preferable to FC, but we intend toqualify the subject organization into broad types to make the ranking results more contextually relevant to anincreasingly broad audience. For clarity, the Research Intensity factor described above was simplified, i.e., smallerorganizations should clearly produce less research than a larger organization.

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2. Number of universities by continent and number of MS by country

Key Continent # Us Key Country # MSEU Europe 94 (38%) UK United Kingdom 32

DE Germany 14NL Netherlands 8FI Finland 7CH Switzerland 5BE Belgium 5IE Ireland 4DK Denmark 3ES Spain 3PT Portugal 3FR France 2NO Norway 2SE Sweden 1IT Italia 1AT Austria 1EE Estonia 1PL Poland 1GR Greece 1

NA North America 79 (31%) US United States 69CA Canada 10

AS Asia 48 (19%) JP Japan 11CN China 6HK Hong Kong 5IN India 5KR Korea 5MY Malaysia 5TW Taiwan 3SA Saudi Arabia 2SG Singapore 2TH Thailand 1ID Indonesia 1KZ Kazakhstan 1LB Lebanon 1

OC Oceania 18 (7%) AU Australia 13NZ New Zealand 5

LA Latin America 5 (2%) CO Colombia 2BR Brazil 1CL Chile 1AR Argentina 1

AF Africa 4 (1%) ZA South Africa 3EG Egypt 1Total # MS/VS 248

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